I’m a writer who stacks cat food for a living.
Nine days out of 10, I do it quite happily.
On the 10th day, I ask myself, Am I going to work in a grocery store forever?
I can’t blame the economy for what I do.
I spent my days writing, going to oyster happy hour ($1 oysters!)
and walking my elderly dog on the beach.
But at night, worried about what I would do next, I couldn’t sleep.
It’s not that I’m averse to hard work.
I come from a family of bricklayers and hairdressers.
But we lived in California, in a neighborhood filled with kids wearing unpolishable Vans.
That was the beginning of what was to become a long waitressing career.
But I wanted to writeand writing didn’t qualify.
I thought they were soft and that I was morally superior.
After graduation, I kept waitressing.
Secretly, I wasn’t sure I could, either.
During my first semester, I felt like an impostor.
Overnight, I went from “Miss, can you bring me some ketchup?”
to “Excuse me, Professor, can we discuss my grade?”
They didn’t get it.
As for me, despite my fancy title, I still needed a second job to support myself.
So when I saw an ad for cotton candy vendors at the nearby baseball stadium, I applied.
I’m a huge baseball fan, and the gig sounded quaint.
Plus, I thought it would be good exercise now that I worked behind a desk.
“I’m beat from my second job selling cotton candy.”
Besides, everyone knows that teaching writing isn’t a real job.
Selling cotton candy allowed me to keep one foot planted in the working-class world.
After a month of hunting, I accepted a full-time spot (with benefits!)
at a small liberal arts school.
“Hello, Professor,” she joked.
I gestured at my basket, empty save for tension-taming tea and antistress bath gel.
“Teaching is sucking my soul,” I said.
“Why don’t you quit and apply here?”
“I’m telling youthis is the best job I’ve ever had.”
She, too, has a master’s, student loans to pay and a writing life.
“Stacking cat food is the best job you’ve ever had?”
“Yes,” she said.
“C’mon, let’s get you an app.”
Not that the food co-op is an ordinary supermarket.
“Oh, and by the way,” Elise added.
“You only have to work 25 hours a week to get health insurance.”
Only 25 hours a week!
I’d have time to write!
My heart dropped, but she had a point.
Was it wrong of me not to use my advanced degree for something better?
A few weeks went by.
No call from the co-op.
Maybe it was tougher to get a job at a supermarket than I thought.
I slogged on, consumed with lesson plans and grading.
Then I got an invitation to do a public reading in New York City of my novel.
I was angry but more sure than ever that teaching was interfering with my writing.
Then she said that the co-op had just OK’d her request to go on a four-week book tour.
“It’s better for me as a writer,” I said, and it felt true.
It didn’t matter if the deanor anyone elseunderstood.
My tasks were to stock shelvesand answer customer questions.
I loved stacking so all the labels lined up nicely.
It felt like a kind of meditation.
My body was sore, but I couldn’t believe my good luck.
The hours that followed were all mineto write.
Clearly, I’d made the right choice.
A month after I’d started, a former teaching colleague came down the aisle.
After we’d said hello, she confided that she envied my new simpler existence.
I’m writing nearly 30 hours a week.
That may not be visible to the outside world, but it means the world to me.
